Epitome
by hewhoistomriddle
Summary: ItaHina ONESHOTS. 7 - Fifty unrelated drabbles/minifics. Yes, FIFTY.
1. Epitome

At last, I _finally _got the nerve to write again. All it took was an OTP.

The title has nothing to do with the story. It is a tribute to the SAT-words I _should_ have been studying when I wrote this. I am so going to fail my first choice medical school at this rate.

This is inspired by "_As Far As Innocence Goes_" by _Aixyutin_. Read it! It is _fantastic_. The Itachi is _awesome_.

**Pairings**: Itachi/Hinata

**Warnings**: Possible spoilers? I don't know! I've been keeping up with Naruto through AU fanfiction.

**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

* * *

**EPITOME**

_**Epitome (n.) – a perfect example, embodiment

* * *

**_

One day, Hiruzen Sarutobi bowed.

In front of an entire hidden village, the Professor, the strongest man to ever carry the title Hokage, fell to his knees and asked for pardon. His army of shinobi watched as he beseeched Uchiha Fugaku, the entire Uchiha clan, to accept his offering of peace. In return for their continued loyalty, the Uchiha would be granted the power and influence they once held. The ANBU surveillance would be lifted and the Uchiha would realize a greater freedom than they had in years.

The Third could feel the blatant disapproval of the Elders through his hat. It had been a painfully difficult decision to make: as a leader, he was expected to viciously stamp out any threat to the village and as a student of the Senju, it was a metaphorical slap in both his sensei's faces to side with the Uchiha. But, if a certain young man was to be believed, to order the massacre of the Leaf's greatest clan would be to play right into Madara's hands.

Now, more than ever, the Leaf could not afford to lose the Uchiha. It had already lost its share of great ninja – the Fourth, the White Fang, Orochimaru, Jiraiya and Tsunade to an extent – and Sarutobi refused to lose more. If the Uchiha were eliminated, the other clans would start fortifying their defenses and break away. It would be suicide for a hidden village to be divided.

Uchiha Fugaku nodded to his kinsmen, almost in relief, and beckoned the Hokage forward.

One night, a rebellion was averted and Uchiha Itachi became free.

* * *

It was without a fair amount of gossip that the Uchiha prodigy was removed from the ANBU at the Hokage's orders. The Uchiha in the village council certainly raised a stink about it until the Third was forced to explain himself.

Sarutobi shrewdly began by listing all of Itachi's achievements, his brilliance, his power and then turned it into a discussion of how genius shinobi who became too powerful too fast and ended up as _traitors_, _basketcases _or _dead too young_.

He would keep to himself his thoughts on the young man who, only six years ago, had asserted his willingness to sacrifice all familial ties for his village. And while loyalty was certainly an admirable trait, and one he always encouraged, he was strongly reminded of another prodigy who used his life, his wife and his own son to protect the village. He can only ask for such a sacrifice once and he does not want to end up with another _Minato_.

He will give Itachi a chance to be selfish this time and make him realize that self-sacrifice is not always an answer.

As a consequence, Itachi ended up Itachi-sensei.

He would have preferred staying in ANBU.

* * *

His first – and last – team composed of Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino and Hyuuga Hinata. And though he was disappointed that Sasuke wasn't on his team, he wasn't quite displeased.

Inuzuka was loud and stupidly reckless for a genin. But he was fast, keen and stubbornly loyal. Itachi didn't know much about ninja dogs and made a note to himself to follow up on that. Ditto on bugs. Aburame Shino was quiet and secretive. He was also strong, stealthy and tolerant. Hyuuga Hinata was quiet and painfully shy. But she had excellent chakra control, good form and, more importantly, determination. He passes all three – their clans would already have taught them enough skills for genin level.

They were good, innocent kids, despite their background. He was going to have to hone them into weapons – fast, deadly and accurate – and that irritated him. His only consolation was that they were also impressionable kids. He would teach them to fight for peace and Konoha. He will whip these kids into something great and he vowed that none of them will ever turn traitor.

Uchiha Itachi had never failed in anything his whole life. He wasn't starting now.

* * *

When Sasuke comes home that night complaining of his lazy-ass sensei and obnoxious teammates, Itachi is not surprised. The Third had always been good for retribution.

Kakashi's chronic lateness and tendency to read Icha-Icha in the presence of women had landed him with his admittedly _bratty _otouto, a fangirl and Naruto Uzumaki, kyuubi vessel and dead-last ninja. Itachi is a genius – he knows exactly why people are so cold to the blond boy. He's never had a chance to meet this Uzumaki, but considering his parentage (again, Itachi is not stupid), Sasuke may have met his match. Except for the fangirl, Itachi is almost jealous of Kakashi.

Within three days, Sasuke asks him for extra training because he nearly failed Kakashi's bell test. Itachi tell him 'next time'. Sasuke glares at Team 10 whenever they pass each other on a mission.

Itachi wonders about his brother complex.

* * *

Itachi feels his fists clench angrily when he watches Hyuuja Neji beat up his cousin in the preliminaries. He does _not _want to deal with this right now. _Not _when Orochimaru might be back in Konoha and after the sharingan, _not _when Itachi's heard of a possible Sand-Sound alliance against the Leaf.

Hinata had held her own against the Hyuuga prodigy, a testament to Itachi's superior teaching. But Neji was at the peak of his hatred and radiating killer intent while Hinata... Hinata hesitated to harm her cousin. Itachi had warned her about this weakness but she _apparently _hadn't listened.

_Damn stubbornness._

But her cousin wasn't much better. Letting his emotions get to him like that… _and he was supposed to be a genius._

Itachi's eyes narrowed. _Even the most brilliant of shinobi leave themselves to this hatred that breeds war…_ Itachi was dangerously annoyed. He had hoped Hyuuga Neji was better than this, when his father had willingly given his own life to prevent a war with Cloud, a man Itachi respected.

But, _enough_, Itachi called for Hinata to stop before her cousin killed her. She stopped, but apparently the cousins had several last words for each other. He'd had to jump in inevitably.

* * *

In the finals, he'd had to jump in a second time, cursing internally all the way._ Damn damn damn!  
_

_Just _when the Leaf had achieved a relative peace, _just _when people were beginning to let go of their hatred, the bastard Orochimaru had to return and _his brother_ was in pursuit the Shikaku jinchuuriki and its siblings. It was exactly at these times he wished he had the Mangekyou.

The Third was fighting Orochimaru. His kinsmen and the rest of Konoha shinobi were protecting the village and its civilians. His own team was out there somewhere, hopefully unhurt. He himself was following Sasuke and gaining. His _foolish_ _idiotic_ _stupid_ baka of a little brother had no idea what he was up against. His damn chidori wouldn't help him much against a demon.

…

Sasuke was really lucky he was friends with the Nine-tails (though Itachi still had some issues with _that _mission when his brother had gone up against another powerful bloodline limit and nearly died). Itachi would forever be thankful to that boy and his ability to touch people (an ability he himself hadn't been blessed with).

Itachi carries Sasuke and Naruto back to their fresh new ruin of a village. His father and mother are alive, as is most of their clan. Orochimaru is soundly defeated but the Third is dead.

_The Third is dead_. Itachi fears that all his hard work will unravel.

But Tsunade, not Danzo, succeeds him as Godaime and Itachi can breathe freely.

He does not protest when she reinstates him as ANBU captain and reassigns Yuuhi Kurenai to take his team. He thinks he is oddly touched when his students are devastated.

* * *

Itachi spies on Orochimaru and coordinates with Jiraiya to gather information on a mysterious organization called Akatsuki. He does not imagine at first that Madara is behind it. The sharingan-user had fled Konoha years ago, unwilling to take on the whole village. The more he discovers, the more he is disturbed, the more he wants to find out for his beloved village

Sasuke tries to contact him every week. So does Hinata. He roughly tells them both to stop. But he keeps the letters.

Itachi does not return to Konoha for three years.

When he returns, there is a new face on the mountain. Sasuke is almost as tall as him and has as many fangirls. He has grown strong from Kakashi and Fugaku's training. Naruto is even stronger. Kiba and Shino had grown up too. And Hinata was a lovely young woman.

Itachi, after a week or two, thinks he might have a crush. Unfortunately, her cousin, with overprotective, almost all-seeing eyes, knows it too. He refuses to leave Hinata-_sama_.

**

* * *

**In his first encounter with Akatsuki, he meets a blue man. Kisame Hoshigaki.

Memories of a life unled flashes through his mind and he wonders at the familiarity of the S-class nin. He stops wondering when the Samehada starts moving to Konoha. Itachi absolutely refuses to let this man walk a mile further. The battle is long and brutal and Itachi is thankful for his quick reflexes and katon techniques. Even more, he is thankful when his backup Yamato comes.

He earns himself a title as an enemy of Akatsuki.

So it was perhaps too good to resist when Itachi and Naruto and other Konoha nins went to Suna on a diplomatic mission to the Kazekage. The shikaku jinchuuruki. They sent Orochimaru, Akasuna no Sasori and Deidara to eliminate and retrieve.

The nuke-nin hates him on sight. Itachi does not pause to wonder why. He strikes.

The Suna nins take care of their own and Sasori is taken down (_pwned_, actually) by his own grandmother.

And, of all people, it is Sasuke and his baka-friend who kills Orochimaru.

Itachi sees Tobi and is horrified. He returns to Konoha at once.

Tsunade calls a meeting with the Kages and successfully forms a five-village alliance.. They declare war on Akatsuki (much to Itachi's displeasure).

Madara escapes with his life. But Danzo is killed. (It seems fair.)

* * *

"Uchiha Hinata" has a rather nice ring to it, Itachi thinks.

The wedding was anything but small. After all, she was a main house Hyuuga and he was an Uchiha, _the_ Uchiha. It was a formidable alliance in the making and both their fathers were pleased.

Sasuke had been surprised.

Neji and Itachi had looked at each other before the ceremony, genius to genius, and understood each other without words.

**

* * *

**

Madara attacks when Itachi's son graduates from the academy. He really should've known better.

His second Akatsuki is much inferior to his first and there are no more tailed-beasts to control (except kyuubi no kitsune, but he's already made his peace with Naruto).

Konoha is at its strongest when he attacks and the Valley of the End is now really the valley of _The End_.

**

* * *

**

Itachi remembers a time when he would have given up everything for the Leaf. After all these years, he feels the same.

There was a new face on the mountain.

It is his.

* * *

_Owari

* * *

_

I did want to do more ItaHina. I'm _crazy _for the pairing, maybe a side-fic later on when I'm better, I don't want to bastardize it.

I'm sorry if they're out of character. I haven't read Naruto for a while and I'm still getting a feel for the characters.

And if it seems like the end is rushed, its because my indolence is propotional to my drowsiness.


	2. 1sentence

Supposedly 1sentence drabbles. I got it from some fics (who said its from LJ - so credits there) and I wanted to try them out. Tried for sentences, got paragraphs. Meh, I'm pathetic. Some are normal. Some are for canon. Some are in the Epitome universe. Some are crack. _Whatever I can think of first_.

Damn, I really wanted to finish this before Christmas. Ran into a few problems so…yeah.

**Warnings**: May be OOC (No, not _may be, _its _definitely_ OOC). And its fluffy. Is all.

**Pairings**: ItaHina

**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

* * *

**1sentence**

* * *

**Comfort**

Being a ninja was a harsh, merciless and often brutal lifestyle, especially when born heir to a powerful clan. Having someone who understands, Itachi and Hinata agree, was an immeasurable comfort.

* * *

**Kiss**

Itachi was one of Konoha's finest shinobi so there was no way that first kiss was an accident, no matter how it looked like (all the kisses afterwards were definitely deliberate).

* * *

**Soft**

Her voice was soft. He rarely spoke. They never minded the silence.

* * *

**Pain**

His clan was dead at his hands. Sasuke was severely traumatized. Everything he had – his pride, his brother's love, his bonds, his existence – was _gone_.

Uchiha Itachi leaves Konoha without a backwards glance, chucking the ANBU armor on his way.

* * *

**Potatoes**

Summer in Konoha meant heat waves that brought in a spirit of lethargy that affected even the most elite of ninjas. Hinata really hated this kind of lazy day. _Honestly_, a house full of genius ninjas – Itachi (man of the house), Neji (who visited so often he might as well move in) and Sasuke (freeloading brother) – and not one of them would budge to help her with dinner. _What couch potatoes.

* * *

_

**Rain**

It rains everyday in Amegakure. The falling droplets and rhythmic sound of water pounding on pavement always tempted Itachi to reflect. It seems that rain marks every significant event in his life. Even the night he'd fled Konoha, a light shower had fallen, helping hide his tracks from the ANBU. That is why he always minds the weather.

Itachi will make sure it is cloudy when Sasuke finds him. He knows, for certain, it will rain when he dies. A lonely, lovely rain that will make his peace with this world.

* * *

**Chocolate**

Itachi surreptitiously peered down the hallway, all senses on high alert. _Coast clear. _After checking once more if his disguise was intact, he sprinted down the corridor, peeked outside, stealthily sneaked past the entrance where his brother was being mobbed and finally reached his sanctuary in the trees. He took off the hat and glasses and made his way to where _she_ was sitting.

_Okay, Itachi, act cool._ He nonchalantly plopped down on the seat beside her and waited.

After an eternity, "Um…ano…Uchiha-sempai?" The girl's face was very red as she struggled to maintain eye contact. He grunted to show he was listening.

"Um…p-please accept t-this!" She bowed very low and held out a small package of chocolate. "Ah… y-you d-don't have to if you don't l-like it… But N-naruto-kun and Kiba-kun and even N-neji-niisan say they were good and, um, ah…" her eyes darted away in mortification as she ran out of things to say.

Itachi chuckled. _Of course_ – of all the girls in school, his crush would be the one to hesitate giving him chocolate on Valentines Day. He didn't know whether to be amused or disappointed.

* * *

**Happiness**

Life after the massacre was hell – hated by his beloved brother, hunted by his village, being an outcast even among missing nins – nonetheless, Itachi found reasons to be happy. _He was still alive. Sasuke was safe. His village was safe. Pein still wasn't suspecting him. _He grins wryly to himself.

* * *

**Telephone**

Letters were always too slow in coming and _so easily intercepted_.

* * *

**Ears**

Unlike other Jounin-sensei, Itachi did not need to drag his team by the ears to discipline them. They were _that _respectful (afraid) of him.

* * *

**Name**

Uchiha Hinata. _Uchiha Hinata. _Uchiha. Hinata. Itachi and Hinata. ItaHina.

It fit so well.

* * *

In the dead of the night Sasuke and Hinata meet at the memorial. They carve Itachi's name on the monument.

* * *

**Sensual**

Hiashi and Neji and the rest of the Hyuuga would have had a fit if they ever heard him call their most highly prized _Jyuuken_ technique sensual. So it was a good thing only Hinata made it so.

* * *

**Death**

Itachi remembers being thirteen and in ANBU – porcelain masks, commanding people twice as old as himself, moonless nights and rooms that reek of death. It was not quite different from Akatsuki.

* * *

**Sex**

So he _was_ ticklish there – _Oh my.

* * *

_

**Touch**

There is only a privileged few who can touch Itachi and not have a kunai shoved into their brains.

* * *

**Weakness**

Itachi couldn't stop himself in time.

"_I'm sorry Sasuke, there won't be a next time."_

He _had_ to apologize to his brother before he died. That one moment of weakness could have ruined everything.

* * *

**Tears**

Hinata cried herself to sleep for weeks after the Uchiha massacre. Only a few months later, she seemed to be the only who remembered that she too had been close with Sasuke's family, that Itachi had once been her friend.

* * *

**Speed**

_Faster! Faster! Faster! _His body was quivering with exhaustion as Itachi pushed himself up again, willing his body to transcend its limitations. He was already halfway to mastering the Fourth's teleportation jutsu and he still didn't feel strong enough.

* * *

**Wind**

She was about to leave for a mission in Suna when he first told her he loved her, saying it so softly that she almost missed it.

* * *

**Freedom**

"_He lived as a fugitive, a traitor, a criminal, praying for the release of death."_

In death, Itachi found the sanctuary for the broken, the home of outcasts, and the peace for all in need of it. He finds his freedom.

* * *

**Life**

"Anata, guess who's going to be a father?"

* * *

**Jealousy**

He would never admit how relieved he was that she'd never been part of his brother's fan club. He's glad when she keeps her hair short when Sakura and Ino and other girls her age grows theirs long just so his brother would notice.

(_Why would I like Sasuke-kun? _She asks years later, confused. _I had you_.)

* * *

**Hands**

Itachi had talented hands, whether it be for forming seals, throwing kunai…or something else.

* * *

**Taste**

"Go on, just taste it, it's not like…"

A spike in killing intent.

"…Nii-san's here." Sasuke finished weakly.

He felt himself pale at he stared turned and met Itachi's eyes.

"Sasuke, might I ask why you are trying to intoxicate my team?"

* * *

**Devotion**

Hinata makes a plea to Kami every time Itachi does something dangerous.

_Kami, keep him safe. Bring him home._

She prays everyday.

* * *

**Forever**

Itachi will live on (like a link on a chain that goes on and on forever).

* * *

**Blood**

Though no one will ever admit to it, Itachi knows everyone wonders how the two powerful bloodline limits will fuse. Sasuke and Neji are even _secretly_ setting up a betting pool. _Bastards_.

Hinata is just embarrassed at all the attention they were getting.

* * *

**Sickness**

Disease was eating away at him, zapping him of the strength he needed as his world grew darker due to his fading eyesight. They had never felt they needed a medic-nin in Akatsuki.

* * *

Sasuke remarked that it was funny how a mere sickness was enough to bring his great Hokage brother down…especially when it wasn't him who was sick.

* * *

**Melody**

Itachi awkwardly strings along a few notes to resemble a melody his mother used to hum to his baby brother. As he rocks the newborn to sleep, Itachi worries he won't be a good father.

* * *

**Stars**

"Look, Sasuke-kun! So many stars!" Five-year-old Hinata gushed, pointing to the sky.

"There aren't any stars, Hinata-chan!" Sasuke crossed his arms.

"There are too!" Hinata shouted, grabbing Sasuke's head to where she was pointing.

"There are not!" Sasuke growled back, slapping her hand away.

"Itachi-niisan?!" They both turned to him.

"Hinata-chan," Itachi said tiredly, readjusting her. "Neither I nor Sasuke can see past the clouds. You though can see with your Byakugan."

"Oooohhhh," the two youngsters nodded in understanding.

Itachi sighed. He was stuck babysitting his brother and the Hyuuga heiress and – with Hinata in his arms and Sasuke riding piggyback, _screaming_ back and forth to each other – he was getting rather tired.

* * *

**Home**

Itachi feels elated at finally seeing his beloved hidden village again. Konoha may not always love her ninja, but they will always love her.

* * *

"Itachi," She sobbed into the darkness, over and over as the rain fell down in buckets around her, punching the training log with every mention of his name. "_Why aren't you coming home?!_"

* * *

**Confusion**

"You're marrying Hinata – Hyuuga Hinata?! _Since when_?!"

"Sasuke…" Itachi nearly face-palmed. _Did he really want his brother as his best man?

* * *

_

**Fear**

Fear was Itachi's constant companion and ally. With his tsukiyomi, he was able to take people's fears and nightmares and wield them as weapons. He had no need to break bodies when he could break minds.

* * *

Itachi's greatest fear was the possibility that maybe he'd been wrong in teaching Sasuke hatred.

* * *

**Lightning/Thunder**

During their fight, Itachi vaguely wonders how Sasuke's signature move was chidori when, as a child, he'd often come running to Itachi during thunderstorms.

* * *

**Bonds**

Uchiha Fugaku and Hyuuga Hiashi slipped out of the reception surreptitiously, a great feat considering the number of ninja at the event. Once alone, the two men high-fived and did a victory dance that would have made jaws drop.

"Just as planned!"

* * *

**Market**

Although nothing seemed to change between them following Itachi's return to Konoha, everyone soon knew that Hyuuga Hinata was officially off the market.

* * *

**Technology**

"Really, Sasuke… _fanfiction?_" Itachi quirked a brow at him, his lips almost twitching in amusement.

Sasuke looked mortified as he slammed his laptop screen down. "…just checking the new ItaHina stories." He mumbled once Itachi had gone.

* * *

**Gift**

There really was no point in trying to surprise her husband with a gift. God knows it was impossible in a ninja village. Itachi agrees, adding the fact that she had been _Hyuuga_, so she can imagine the lengths he had to resort to do the same. (In fact, getting a ring to go with his proposal had required a level of care and attention of an A-class mission.)

* * *

**Smile**

Sasuke could swear he'd never seen his brother make such a goofy face before.

* * *

**Innocence**

At fifteen, Hinata, with her wide eyes and shy demeanor, is a picture of innocence.. But Itachi knows she knows at least thirty different ways to bend a man to her will and twice as many ways to maim him. He taught her these himself.

* * *

**Completion**

He's not there when she makes Chuunin a year after those disastrous first exams. He's somewhere in the Wind country (or Lightning or Earth or Rain or wherever) so he doesn't see her wipe the floor with her opponent from Cloud. He doesn't see how far she, Kiba and Shino had gotten. He doesn't hear the other genin talk about the team _the_ Uchiha Itachi trained. He probably would have been proud.

* * *

He's not allowed to be there at her Jounin exam. God knows he won't intervene but then, God also knows that no one's crazy enough to go all out on Hyuuga Hinata in his presence.

* * *

**Clouds**

His first-born has Nara Shikamaru for a Jounin-sensei. Cloud watching, shogi matches and _troublesome _– Itachi prepares himself.

* * *

**Sky**

Someday, he knows, this little Hyuuga will spread her wings and take over the entire sky.

* * *

**Heaven**

Hinata was his own little precious piece of heaven. _His_ to protect. _His_ to cherish. _His_ to love.

Itachi never realized he was so selfish.

* * *

**Hell**

Itachi remembers being forced to fight in the Third Ninja war – the clash of weapons, blood-red eyes and hundreds of civilians helpless against the onslaught of shinobi. It still makes his blood boil to think about it.

* * *

**Sun**

For her birthday, Itachi gives her sunflowers, not roses, not carnations, _sunflowers_.

(Later, Ino tells her he actually _nearly _bought seven different bouquets before reconsidering.)

* * *

**Moon**

They were walking around enjoying the Konoha's Moon festival (supposedly in celebration of the creation of the moon by the Sage of Six Paths) when Sasuke appeared. Sasuke glanced around warily before asking if he could borrow Hinata for a while.

"Sasuke, you should get a girlfriend of your own." Itachi said, slightly annoyed, as he poked his brother with his dango stick. "That way, you wouldn't have to use _mine_ to ward off your fangirls."

* * *

**Waves**

"Come on, Itachi-sensei!" Kiba urged as he put a little more emphasis on his hip movement. "We _can't_ lose to anyone in this!"

Itachi sweatdropped. For the sake of an absolutely _perfect_ C-rank mission for a genin team, that infuriating Hokage had suggested a dance-off. _A freaking dance-off_.

"Now, sensei! The waves! The _Wave_!" Kiba shouted as he, Shino and Hinata moved in perfect synchrony.

* * *

**Hair**

Hinata thinks Itachi's long raven hair is beautiful. She fingers a lock of her own in mild amusement and a hint of chagrin. Only _Neji's_ was comparable.

* * *

**Supernova**

Uchiha Itachi was barely in his twenties when he died.

Like a dying star going out with a bang, massive gravity affecting everything in the universe.

He will not realize the expanse of empty space he leaves behind.

* * *

_Owari

* * *

_Belated happy holidays everyone! BTW, the new chapter of Naruto (I've been catching up) has me psyched!


	3. Life Lessons

**Title: **Life Lessons

**Summary: **Itachi imparts some knowledge on a young Hinata.

**Warnings: **Short and rushed. One of those thirty-minute things.

* * *

The girl really couldn't have been more than six years old.

Itachi watched her idly from behind his father while the heads of the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans exchanged customary greetings. Their kinsmen, who usually flanked the leaders at the official meetings, were absent. Itachi vaguely wondered why _he_'d been dragged along.

"Hiashi-dono, my son, Itachi," Itachi stepped forward and bowed respectfully.

"My daughter, Hinata," Quietly, she stepped forward and repeated his actions perfectly, murmuring a polite welcome, and quickly went back behind her father.

Hiashi lead them all into the large compound in silence. Fugaku and Itachi followed. Hinata trailed behind, knowing instinctively that her part in all this was over, but reluctant to leave until dismissed.

When they reached the main house, Hiashi turned to his heir. "Hinata, keep Itachi company while we talk."

The tiny girl bowed in nervous obedience. After their fathers left to discuss business, she turned to him.

"Ano, do you want to do anything, Uchiha-san?"

Itachi replied in the negative. Awkward silence stretched between them.

The younger heir squirmed. Itachi took pity on her.

"I heard," He intoned quietly. "That the Hyuuga gardens grew beautifully this year."

"Ah," Hinata said (a bit sadly, Itachi noticed). She turned to him, forcing a cheery smile. "They are. I could bring you, that is, if you want to see…"

Itachi gestured for her to lead the way.

Once they reached the extensive, admittedly magnificent garden, Hinata politely offered to guide him around to look more closely at the various herbs and blooms.

Itachi thought it over a moment and graciously declined.

"You don't have to watch over me, Hyuuga-san," He stated as he stalked over to a tree and leaned against it in the shade. "I'll stay here until my father comes out. You can go."

Hinata bit her lip in consternation. _It would be so awfully rude…_

"I insist, Hyuuga-san," He added with a firm tone, noticing her expression. It would be pointless to keep her there after all.

"Oh, excuse me then, Uchiha-san," Hinata bowed again, scurried to the house, _paused_, then went back to whisper a sincere thanks.

* * *

Almost half an hour later, an older female of the Hyuuga branch house came out, carrying an infant swaddled in white cloth adorned with the Hyuuga flame, Hinata in tow.

There was no mistaking the adoration in the heiress' face as her eyes drank in her younger sister.

Itachi found himself observing the scene closely. He had never seen the second daughter before, although he had heard that the mother died in complications in childbirth.

He found himself feeling a bit of detached pity for Hinata, who must have adored her mother, if the way she looked at the gardens earlier was any indication.

Curiously, there wasn't a shred of resentment in the child's eyes, there was nothing but pure, innocent affection in those white orbs.

_It wasn't at all surprising, not to him. _

Itachi felt himself smile. He was more than familiar with that feeling, that unconditional love for a sibling, that sense of having someone at the center of the universe.

He, after all, loved Sasuke so much that his own happiness didn't even compare.

It was wretchedly amusing how mere babes had so much power over them, could have them bending over backwards without hesitation.

He stood up.

* * *

_Auntie was already leaving with Hanabi-chan. _Being without her sister made her feel so alone and lonely.

Hinata felt himself squeak as a pair of arms lifted her from behind. She quickly twisted, ready to scramble away and scream, when her eyes met the happy black ones of the Uchiha heir.

It was surprising, to say the least. She'd seen him, after all, in quite a few formal gatherings in the past and had never once seen him expressing emotion.

Itachi didn't set her down and she didn't protest, not until they reached a patch of the garden Hinata loved.

"Uchiha-san… um…" He shushed her smoothly and let her down. Then he kneeled so they were staring directly at each other.

"_Do you know why the elder sibling is born first?"_

Hinata's madly blushing face scrunched up in confusion.

"Why were we born first, Hinata-chan?" The use of her first name startled (and delighted) her, though she was still clueless as to where this was getting at.

"Um…" She thought hard, not wanting to disappoint. "Ah…" Frustrated tears sprang at her eyes.

"_It's so we can protect the ones that come after_." Itachi answered, conveying conviction in every word.

"Ah," Hinata brightened. "I knew that already, I-Itachi-san. I would do anything for Hanabi-chan!"

Itachi stood and smiled down at her. _Good_.

* * *

Two years later, when Itachi slaughtered his clan and left his little brother alive to pick up the pieces, only Hinata understood why.

* * *

"_Even if you come to hate me because of it… That's what being the older brother is about_."

* * *

_Owari_

* * *

**Notes: **The lesson is from Bleach, thanks _Ironically Pessimistic_ for telling me. The pirates-themed ItaHina story is still in works (and progressing very slowly, damnit, schoolwork and a cluttered mind proving very bad obstacles). The summary is in Cranes or Civilian.

By the way, I'm gonna put all ItaHina stuff here.

Thanks for reading! Did I ever mention how much I appreciate it?

Never underestimate the power of a review!


	4. AUTHOR's NOTE

_Just thought I should say this..._

**Treasure** (the pirate-themed one) was posted as a separate story because... it broke the oneshot barrier, descended into crack, and isn't so much ItaHina as it is Akatsuki humor/action-adventure.

If you think it's still worth reading, the story link is on my profile.

**Warnings **though: it's still _ongoing_. After you read it, you just might add me to the roster of idiots that you know (you have my consent to do it too).

_That's all. _


	5. Rumpelstiltskin

**Notes: **-_twitch- _I don't know what's wrong with me. I turned to fairytales – not a good idea, in retrospect, since they're absolutely gruesome. And I felt the need to distort it, as I do with everything else.

**Warnings: **This is blatant parody, illogical **CRACK, AU and OOC** (Itachi! Hinata! Madara! Everyone! I might as well change the names!). This follows the fairytale more than it does Naruto-canon-verse. If you do not want your childhood memories tainted, stop reading, _I swear_.

AND IT'S NOT REALLY ITAHINA UNLESS YOU _SQUINT_.

**Disclaimer: **Kishimoto… and the Grimm Brothers, I think. I'm heavily leaning on the original fairytale for structure as well, since I'm sorely lacking creativity right now.

* * *

**Rumpelstiltskin**

* * *

Under the cover of the leaves, in a village well-hidden from enemies and alliances alike, there existed a clan that was as proud as it was affluent, and pigheaded about tradition as it was old. The clan head, _you must know_, had a very beautiful – though she hid it behind a jacket that may easily pass for a tent – daughter. She was moreover, very sharp and determined, but entirely too meek and sweet to take advantage of others the way the rest of her clan did to advance their position.

Because of this, her father grew weary and impatient and was hitting rock-bottom and starting to dig. He had to find a way to make a ruthless kunoichi and a worthy clan head of the daughter.

(He actually had another daughter, but he knew very well the disastrous chain of events _that_ daughter could instigate, the most mild of which would result in temporary exile and the most wild… in complete annihilation of the bloodline. So, nevermind.)

One day, in a fit of either inspiration or demonic hallucinations brought upon by the incense he continuously inhaled as per tradition, he ordered her to join the ANBU Black Ops.

_Discipline_. _Competence_. _Stolidity_. She'd learn all these necessary traits in ANBU, where said traits were heavily drilled into rookies (incidentally, right before the Annual ANBU-Police Force Joint Survival Training and Competition and Family Picnic).

And, before the waylaid daughter could get a stutter out, he sent her off with the two fastest shinobis of the clan to the headquarters, more specifically into the post of one infamous ANBU captain, who took one look and correctly assessed the situation:

_Another obstinate scheme at the expense of the village._

However, this ANBU captain, ever mindful of how outright rejection of this new recruit could incite anything from messy diplomatic relations to bloody clan wars, mulled over a scheme to decline her application without too many consequences (because such things were inevitable).

He activated his bloodline limit and gave her the… spinning wheel… eyes.

Classic intimidation tactics always work best in preposterous situations.

But the girl was no stranger to bloodline limits, especially of the _doujutsu_ variety and mustered up a veiny glare of her own.

This called for more drastic, though _never_ desperate, measures.

"Before you join ANBU, you must clear out training ground 45… with fire techniques."

The captain said unemotionally, surreptitiously referring to the list of impossible tasks his bestfriend had prepared for situations such as these where one needed a mercilessly strident and woefully transparent _keep-off-our-turf_ signal.

Sub-list for distinctly _water technique _users, as the girl clearly demonstrated in the Chuunin exams where, if he remembered correctly, gave his younger brother a run for his money. And his pants, much to the delight of their cohorts and _en masse_ nosebleed.

"By tomorrow morning, if you want this position."

It was in vain that the frustrated kunoichi protested that she was of _water affinity_, _couldn't he understand that? _But she was left alone, with the dilemma of having to face her father yet again to disappoint him or actually trying to do something as impossible as spinning gold out of hay.

Later, as she wandered about the training ground she had to raze somehow – using _ninjutsu_ because that captain would surely be able to tell if she cheated, which would likely get her booted out even faster and more shamefully – a droll-looking man in a mask strutted out from behind some pines.

"Good morrow to you, little ninja, why do you look as though you've picked up the tab after an Akimichi?"

The _kunoicihi _stiffened, then readily fell into a _Jyuuken _stance. How did this unknown man infiltrate this deep into _Konoha _and this close without her noticing?

"Whoa, whoa, it's okay," The man – an S-class missing nin, for all she knew – said cheerily. "Tobi is a good boy who wants to help."

The girl carefully probed his chakra. It was familiar, especially the swirling about the eyes… she relaxed slightly. She knew this type of chakra pattern, or at least she knew the particular clan it belonged to. And, as far as she could tell, none of them had gone missing-nin.

_Yet._

(The clan matriarch had been looking a little dodgy lately.)

She couldn't tell exactly who this man was though, since she had never used her natural born abilities to scope the males of that clan, no matter how many times her classmates asked (demanded rather).

(Well, _one time_, on that adorably curly-haired male with the _doryoku_. Since _he_ didn't look like he would eviscerate her if her caught on to her spying. A little mortifying mind-control, maybe, to teach her a lesson on spying better or on less able targets, but nothing too lethal.)

"T-tobi." She cocked her head to the side as she tried to associate the name to a face and came up zilch. "U-unless you can teach me how to use f-fire techniques, there is really nothing y-you can do to help. T-thank you very much for you offer, however."

"I can teach you that."

"Y-you can't. I-I'm water –"

Tobi facetiously waved that detail off. "The important thing is, what will you give me to do it?"

Hinata was instantly red and instantly leery, ready to _Hakke_ at him should he make one suspicious move.

"You misunderstand. A _technique_ – let me copy a technique. Eye for an eye, and all that."

Hinata thought she could see him smirking beneath that mask. Nope, not _thought_, she _did _see him smirking beneath that mask.

"A-any technique?"

A brusque nod.

…

_Round about, round about_

_Spin and spin and bleed_

_Reel away, real away_

_Done's the fiery deed_

…

When the ANBU captain came the next day and saw the smoking remains of the wood and the traces of leftover chakra, he was greatly astonished and instantly suspicious. When a _kunoichi_ could use a technique that wasn't her forte, it was remarkable. When she could use it to this magnitude, it was a matter of national security.

He put her on his personal surveillance radar. Got some ribbing for it too.

…

"W-what do you mean it's n-not enough to join ANBU?"

"Ninjutsu is merely a portion of the roster of abilities you need for ANBU," The captain explained calmly. "You also need to be able to carry out solo tasks swiftly and efficiently. Hence, a B-class subdue-and-capture mission. It is fully within your capacity. However, you must finish it in a quarter of the time allotted."

"T-that's impossible! That's all the time I need to f-find the target!"

"That's ANBU."

_Or whatever his best friend though ANBU-level ninjas should be capable of. _But then he used _him_ as a measuring stick. It was horribly unfair.

A huge oversight.

Or, more likely, since his bestfriend _was _a deputy captain in the police force, deliberate sabotage.

…

"So which technique will you offer this time? Will it be as _asinine_ as _Sexy no Jutsu_?" Tobi asked as he, like a ghost, followed her on the mission.

She had scraped the barrel with that, becoming part of the great chain of perversity that was as old and timeless as the village itself.

"It's h-hard – you know so many a-already."

"Will you tell me about the _Jyuuken _then? Even academy level knowledge of it would be useful."

"Y-you don't know it?"

Tobi just smiled.

…

_Round about, round about_

_Spin and spin and bleed_

_Reel away, real away_

_Target's a captured kid_

…

When the ANBU captain saw the captured bounty, still in the dregs of a petrifyingly potent genjutsu, his own illusionist's eyes narrowed.

Although he was greatly delighted to have that task done with at least, because his irrepressible brother had been gunning for it himself and, considering it was a solo, supposedly-week-long mission, the ANBU captain could do without worrying himself into a right state during that duration.

_Stupid older brother complex_.

But something was not quite right here.

"You can join ANBU… if you beat me in a spar. Tomorrow morning."

"T-that's ridiculous. Y-you're an ANBU _captain_."

"How about a rematch with my brother?"

It sounded clever in his mind, sharp as shuriken and quick as kunai. Two birds with one stone. His brother might finally stop trying to incite random aggressions between the clans in vengeance and the girl would, hopefully, walk away in honorable grace.

_A rematch_? The girl thought in horror. Forget turning straw to gold. In terms of alchemy, he was positively asking her to bring someone back from the dead.

And, as formidable as the Byakugan was, it was no Rinnegan.

…

"I have no t-techniques left."

"Your first child then."

"A-are you crazy?" One of her eyes, valuable enough to start a new world war, twitched. There was an idea.

"Give me a Byakugan eye."

"N-no way."

"Teach me the Caged Bird seal."

"I-I don't know it either."

"How about your first kiss?"

The girl frowned, sighed and nodded.

Rules of shinobi conduct – do everything possible to secure the success of the mission.

She was a _kunoichi_ after all. And _slut _was part of the job description somewhere.

"I was kidding. What need do I have for first kisses? Especially those of scatterbrained teenaged kids."

"Y-you sound like an old man when you say that."

"Just remember you owe me. I will collect one day."

…

_Round about, round about_

_Spin and spin and bleed_

_Reel away, real away_

_On victor's wine you'll feed_

…

And, in a horrifying upset, she beat him.

A disrobing was severely prohibited, however. There was no need to debilitate perhaps three-quarters of their _kunoichi _population after all, even when they lobbied for it with outrageous rabid unity from the stands.

…

With her induction into ANBU, the girl was very glad because her father was very glad.

Most everyone else was still appallingly in shock and unnecessarily occupying up hospital beds as they drooled in denial.

The ANBU captain himself, however, very gracefully accepted the defeat. He was continually watching her like a hawk, unfortunately, as though she would suddenly vomit up the Nine-tails at them.

Tobi, also, she could find neither hair nor hide of, even with her stellar mutated vision.

Which made him either a ghost or a whacked up, _jutsu-_stealing fairy godmother.

…

He proved himself to be neither since coming back into her life at the worst possible moment.

Just when she began dating the ANBU captain. Because, even though he'd put her through hell in the beginning, he was fine and excellent and positively a drug to her system.

"I guess I'll settle for the first kiss."

She was suddenly a little more possessive of said item.

"Y-you can't be serious."

"And you said you don't go back on your word." Damn, he remembered it.

"C-can't I do anything else?"

"How about a game? Double or nothing."

"W-what sort of game?"

"You're not really in a position to bargain. And don't cry either. I will not be moved."

"I w-wasn't about to cry!" She was a _kunoichi_, for heaven's sake, and she didn't need this man's patronage. "F-fine. I accept."

"Three minutes, and if during that time you tell me my name, you're free of me. I won't come after your clan or anything."

_What did her clan have to do with this?_

"Tobi?"

"Obviously, I'm not."

Now the _kunoichi _racked her brain and thought of all the Uchiha she knew, all those odd characters she had to meet in both official and familial capacity, narrowing the list down to those who were gifted enough to create the most elaborate genjutsu.

"Itachi?"

"I can be him, if you want."

"Sasuke – that had better not be you."

"Please, _no_. I would not help you against myself."

"Shisui-san?"

"It would be awful if I were, yes? To betray a best friend like that?"

"Maybe it is Kakashi-sensei?" _He _would be lecherous enough to try something like this.

"Not that Sharingan-stealer, no."

Madara began humming a tune beneath his breath that caused shivers to dance over her skin like wickedly itchy chakra blades.

_Merrily the tailed beasts I'll take_

_Today I'll kill, tomorrow I'll bake_

_Merrily I'll plot and scheme_

_But in a sec the Hyuuga girl will scream_

_(In frustration, I'll bet._)

Obviously under pressure now, logic abandoned her.

"It's not Fugaku-sama, _please_?"

"…"

"Not Mikoto-sama, dear gods?"

"That's ridiculous."

"Madara, leave her alone." The brave and gallant (no.) ANBU captain stepped in.

"M-Madara?!"

"Itachi, you already foiled my massacre. Must you spoil every bit of fun I have? _Tch_, no honor for your ancestors." _Madara _grumbled. "You _witch_."

(No, he said something else that rhymed with _witch_ and that should _never _be found in a 200-year-old-legend's vocabulary, especially when referring to another man.)

"I apparently have a stake in this so I believe honor can be bypassed." The captain said calmly. "Now, I must insist stop reneging on our agreement and leave Konoha alone."

_And stop trying to steal maidens' first kisses. _Went the hidden message.

"Fine, you're off the hook." With that, he disappeared.

And when the girl heard this, she turned nervously to the captain, fighting the mad urge to poke her fingers together. Somewhere in that domineering gaze was her beloved and her captain, but currently it was veering heavily towards CAPTAIN. The scary ogre one.

"A h-happy ending?"

And he gave her a smile that could have meant anything from torturous interrogation to superb paperwork to fairytale romances.

…

XDDD WAAAHHHHH. I want to CRY at this monstrosity I made out of the scraps of my favorite childhood tale. Read it over several times and decided, _yes_, it was hopeless, might as well post it now. The next one I dearly hope will not be as _dopey_.


	6. Flightpath

**Notes:** Non-ninja AU with modern elements. OOC and shifting POVs. But _I actually like it_ – messy, frilly, dancing, disjointed snapshots and all – because I do so want to be a bird right now. You know, to match my brain.

For **Darth-Taisha**, because she was so nice.

**Disclaimer: **The fandom is Kishi's. The lyrics are Secondhand Serenade (I think). I also disclaim any accurate knowledge of how the world works but if you can spot any admonitions on military neo-imperialism… coughit'sminecough.

* * *

**Flightpath**

_Love is like flying.

* * *

_

**One.**

Mud smears across the cheek. Another day of grueling regimen in a muggy, far-off land. Familial connections spare you nothing and you trudge to the bunks as beaten in as everyone else. Every night the grit washes off in a shower that comes to scalding.

All _this_ to prepare for fighting for the red-haze dreams of the dangerously small-minded denizens of your government.

The _field_ is exactly as your cousin described: a little primitive, a little lonely, a little cruel.

As you drift into a light sleep which may be your last – _accidents have been known to happen _– you want to just go vamoose into the night, catch a civilian plane and fly, fly, fly home in reckless desperation (or something close to it).

That flight would be long, nothing short of halfway across the globe, but this journey into the outbacks and unknowns of the earth where safety is forfeit – to defend the civil liberties of total strangers – longer still.

_But sometimes…_

_Sometimes_ – an ephemeral smile from a child, a mother's tears at the delivery of life-saving vaccines, a fissure of hope from a liberated prisoner, a safe motherland even at the cost of more than a few bodybags – being a soldier is worth it.

The degrees of human cruelty and human selflessness no longer hold any surprise for you.

**Two.**

Life is full of surprises.

They had never minded each other before, never crossing the line of _distant acquaintance_, never imagined the wondrously clumsy/awkwardly wonderful future – a life _more-or-less_ together – that had lain in wait.

_Sasuke's prodigious and standoffish-bordering-on-unfriendly older brother. Sasuke's gentle and quiet classmate._

(No great, explosive chemistry. No sheer magnetism.)

_But one day, one day…_

Down a flight of stairs and not even her fault, the stumble of a lifetime.

"Are you all right?"

"Y-yeah…"

"May we go to the nurse's office to verify?" A smile framed in golden sunlight.

(Just sweet, simple gravitation.)

**Three.**

Their relationship had never been more than subtle and sublimely practical.

Never demanding, never claiming ownership, never assuming.

(And _fun_ – long hikes into the woodlands, hiding amongst the leaves in dappled lights, volunteering programs at the hospital where Itachi had involuntarily gathered a following, driving along in companionable silence and heart-stopping speed and skill that would later carry on to jets... Just _fun_.)

They were a song, effortlessly graceful, without disruption. A smooth roll across the runways, mechanically beautiful despite so many odds-and-ends that never should have flowed together but did, _still does_.

After about several years of smooth parallel running across the strip, and armed with nothing but promises, _flight_.

You married in autumn, in a brilliant cold-air swirl of dead leaves in the hues of fire that were, in that photo-perfect moment, equal to any of nature's great vistas.

Now, you are not afraid of flying even into the most brilliant sunshine.

You've found your parachute.

**Four.**

They are people who never know when to stop giving, who _do not_ leave others hanging – and this becomes a problem when one is one of the best pilots in your generation and the other is the protégée medical surgeon at your local hospital.

Duty – for God, for country, for kin – need not call for them to snap up to it.

They are not married a year before it beckoned – _trouble down south, prepare for some desert action, let's kick some sandcastles_ – jarring turbulence that put a lot of senses on high alert.

"I just don't want to read your name off some memorial." Half-kidding, _Accidents have been known to happen._

"And I do not want to come home to an empty house." Half-kidding right back.

It is strange - there is no one to budge you unceremoniously awake at unholy hours save for your harried patients and the puppy dog collie from Inuzuka Hana you unanimously agreed to name Shisui, no one to replenish the stack of ice-cream you both so loved because you were buried in late-duty nights and medical journals, no one to crunch gravel with.

These are times when the absence is felt the most – hearing the muffled roar of jets, thin air that yields no laughter at the mention of things that sounded fleetingly funny in your head, a single-plate dinner, a cold bed that smells only of detergent (and you). It is bad when the strains of teenage emo music starts taking on an unnerving, embarrassing truth on rare occasions.

– _call I'm sick, call I'm lonely, call I'm desperate for your voice –_

(As if in unconscious telepathy, the call comes.)

**Five.**

You reprimand yourself for wondering if the other is safe, is happy, is _still there_.

**Six.**

The day international conflicts subside to a manageable portion is marked with cold winds and the slate blue sky and a lightly falling rain that dots the plane's windows. The aircraft lands, rolls into sun-shaped puddles, you disembark and the fresh, cold breeze feels like a benediction.

Officer's privileges makes it such that it does not take more than a few minutes to spot the person you've been waiting for (_who's been waiting for you_), in crisp doctor clothes – just off duty – and a swirly bright-red umbrella.

Both that and your heavy-duty bag of personals fall – too bad for them – as you two twirl and twirl and twirl in a blur of olive-green fatigues and flawless white.

He sets you down – Solid. Both feet on the ground. - and the missing that felt like a chasm from earth to sky , a floaty sort of feeling, vanish. The flight is over.

"Welcome home, Hinata."

* * *

_If you love something, set it free, watch as it comes spiraling back to you._

**End**

Wait, if any of you read _Treasure_ (that's the cracky one), note that I lost...half the next chapter and all the notes...hardware explosion. Until I recover that, I'm not updating. Meanwhile - oneshots! :)


	7. Fifty Things

**Notes: **I'm having a lot of trouble writing nowadays. I can't get myself inspired on things I _HAVE _to write, like Treasure 12 or the ItaShi exchange piece, which are thus far both so idiotic I shock myself. Some of these are recycled from AU oneshots I've scrapped: "Vines", "Echo", "Smile", "Rules", "Prodigy", etc. A lot are of the "Encounter" universe. I also have, uh, a sketch for "Green".

**Warnings:** OOC, shameless frilliness, oft-repeated themes.

**Disclaimer: **I forget where I got these prompts. I'm assuming LJ, but I changed some. Naruto is Kishimoto's. And I quoted Neruda ("Happiness") and a song ("Wings").

* * *

**Fifty Things**

_Fifty unrelated stories/drabbles to FEED the ItaHina fandom. Yes, __**FIFTY**__._

_100 words apiece. Exactly.__**

* * *

**_(World: Canon AU)

1 Library

It is through dust motes and shelves of yellowing paper that she sees him first. He is deathly still apart from his eyes, spinning pinwheels as they pour over jutsu scrolls and soak up their secrets. Her tongue hesitates on a greeting – he's clearly_ busy_ – so she simply stares. Brilliance slides off him in waves, pools on the polished floor and rolls outward like warm globs of light. Something catches in Hinata's throat in a sharp, giddy way – _probably a heart skipping upwards _– and, for a moment, it's not gravity tethering her to the earth, but the sight of him.

_**2 Bells  
**_(World: Canon AU)**  
**

The ringing bells send a flurry of pigeons rising above the rooftops, for a moment speckling the vivid sky with white beating wings and ivory ribbons. The new-and-only Mrs. Uchiha Itachi watches in unrestrained delight, fingers loosely entwined with her husband's, elegant white dress spilling over the temple grounds. It is not the most romantic gesture – nothing like roses or chocolates or candlelit dinners, but he's never had the stomach for those – but Itachi rather likes the crisp symbolism of birds in free flight for their marriage. He thinks of the branch seal, of oppressive clan structures, and of change.

_**3 Space  
**_(World: Canon-compliant, maybe)

She stares too long at the empty space at the end of the table that beautiful sun-bright summer, surrounded by birdcalls, damp grass and wildflowers. But her nine-year-old heart pumps too loudly, her skin too clammy, and somewhere her soul is getting crushed with the heady realization that she will never walk here again, never hand-in-hand with Itachi. Itachi, who always leaned down a little because he towered over her, who had always been _so kind_ – a keening sound crawls her way out of her throat as she fumbles to recreate a memory uncorrupted by a bleeding katana and betrayal.

_**4 Vines**_**  
**(World: Twenties-Mafia AU)

Shafts of the Tuscan sun spill across the open fields of grapes, illuminating the smoky paths, tangling around the starling purple of the grapes on the vines, weaving shards of itself into the blue-black of her hair. _Amazing_, says the open-mouthed expression she wears. Two steps behind, the heir to the Uchiha Family treads expensive loafers into the reddish-clay, regarding curiously the Hyuuga hitman they sent over from New York. There was clearly some miscommunication – the Uchiha had expected a first-class sniper to aid their war, a merciless, death-dealing gunslinger, not this… pretty thing.

Turns out, no miscommunication had occurred.

_**5 Echo  
**_(World: Witch AU)

_Witch, witch, witch_, the echoes run.

The vicious, faceless crowd prepares the stake and wood and firestones even before she was sentenced. Itachi watches them in their fevered frenzy, like slobbering coils commanded by a depraved machine, working to kill the white-eyed girl exiled to the woods, who protected their homes, healed their sick and returned their lost objects untainted – the witch he'd been summoned by the ruling Hyuuga to hunt, the woman who'd shown him – _rather than the debasement of demons –_ the inexhaustible goodness of the human spirit.

_Witch, witch, witch_, the echoes run, and something in him despairs.

_**6 Smile  
**_(World: Contemporary AU)

_I'll find your smile_, she says gently.

Something in the frail quality of it, in the crystalline determination of her eyes, cuts through the fog of overwhelming grief he'd been slogging through since Sasuke's – _Sasuke, whom he loved above all things _– death. He realizes Hinata doesn't mean it as repayment, not for having received Sasuke's heart, because that would be awfully presumptuous of her and he'd sooner grab Shisui and leave if she even implied such – but there's an earnest light in her face, making the stark paleness recede, something more than gratitude. His chest feels a little less tight.

_**7 Rules**_**  
**(World:Affair AU)

He first notices her because she is Japanese. She's taking panoramic shots of the pyramids, kneeling, sand sticks like red rust on her white shorts. Itachi remembers he's in Egypt on forced vacation, to soak up the ancient glory, expand his culture repertoire, not to acquaint himself in the way that usually leads to a summer affair, beckoned by the cool, starry nights and spicy airs, beautiful hotel room architecture and ancient glories. He had rules on that. But she's terribly pretty, she's been sneaking glances at him for a while, so he's ready to break rules on this one.

_**8 Prodigy**_**  
**(World: Canon Super AU)

"I don't think Hanabi even knows your face," says Itachi one night, shadows from the firelight dancing over his features.

"It is a small price to pay," Hinata merely shrugs, a shrimp in the imposing ANBU armor, delicate-boned hands fluttering over gilded metals and a chipped porcelain mask, but he sees her face, troubled, _sad_.

He recalls a starless night on the road to home after another ANBU operation when the veritable prodigy princess of the Main House flipped down from a tree-branch, and pleaded for a greater chance to die, to keep Hanabi's forehead unmarked a little while longer.

_**9 Cocoon**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

By the time Iwagakure launches the third volley of shots, Konoha is less a village and more a graveyard of splintered homes and splintered men. Survivors remain cocooned in shelters built deep into the earth and high above the trees, stunned, broken and _angry_ like the razor edges of broken crystal. In the foggy mornings, Hinata reports to him – _always numbers, great hoards of numbers _– entire body split along lines of pain and confusion he aches to mend but can't.

The essential difference between the two of them is this: she is of a generation that had never known war.

_**10 Love  
**_(World: Canon AU)

When you're young – _like at fifteen, and meet him for the first time – _love descends like a punch in the gut, like drowning in dark pondwater grasping at lines of light above and the silhouettes of waterlilies, like burning in empyreal fires being razed to the bone.

When you've lived long enough to be dying – _like at thirty, and have lived half your life in his existence_ – love acts as the balm which cools the flaring sting of watching the white-death slowly leech him away, that which allows her to let him go, and keep him at the same time.

_**11 Question**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

"Why not _Madara_?" Hinata ladles the question to the table at large, as guiltlessly as she ladles out another picturesque dish she made in her suddenly vacant hours. Hands made for stabbing chakra scoops soup just as deftly, smelling lightly of the clean scent of herbs homegrown in the back garden. Itachi's wife is at home among these domestic things as she is on the battlefield. "It's a wonderful name… and appropriate as well. He _is _your ancestor. I know he'd been disgraced, but he did help in the founding of the village – please stop gawking, Itachi – you too, Shisui-kun."

_**12 Snow**_**  
**(World: Fairytale AU)

In this once-upon-a-time, Snow White isn't unusually white, except in the eyes, and was often beet-red in fact. She had no problems with stepmothers, her father being the way he is, and she had problems with him instead. She still loved animals, especially foxes. In this once-upon-a-time, the prince didn't wait until his princess was in the stasis of half-death to come to her. Instead, he came bringing apples borrowed from the witch's tree to sessions where he corrected her stance, made seven dwarfed clones for her to spar against, and told her she was the fairest in the land.

_**13 Rain**_**  
**(World: Science AU)

The rain beats in synchrony of the hum of the centrifuge, where cells are cradled into pellets in a bath of RPMI 1640 and dimethylsulfoxide. The media in the tube turns a lovely purple-pink color, an equally lovely pH – resembling the _Saintpaullia ionantha_. Those grew outside the conference building when she'd first grasped the concept of _event horizon_ when she'd gravitated to the pull of his genius, a force greater than atomic energy, perhaps, as his voice more than his words sang out to the thing in her that wasn't made of quarks or charges, but something purer than that.

_**14 Rumor**_**  
**(World: Circus AU)

There are rumors the circus is in town. There are whispers about the smashing girl on the flying trapeze, the one with the captivating eyes, they say she's in love with a townie, that handsome one from up the hill. There are murmurs he stole her from the highwire one night, and snuck her out through the elephant cages and house of mirrors and kissed her above the starlit sea, told her he loved her.

Gossip is spotlight brighter than most, _blinding_ proportions, and people don't notice she's already slipped out with him between the popcorn, the peanuts, and masks.

_**15 Magic**_**  
**(World: Contemporary AU)

The best magician of the decade is the slim, dark-haired young man called the Illusionist. And Hinata had adored him, that porcelain-masked phantom in a tophat, before he suddenly vanished in a flash of a cape, off the stages and seemingly off the earth. Years later, she sits at Illusionist's shrine and recalls the glitter-and-champagne-filled nights of her childhood, taffeta dresses and Mary-Janes, and performances larger than life. Her fiancée listens attentively – mouth curling slightly at corners – and remarks how funny she'd never mentioned this before. He turns an elegant wrist, and doves are exploding into the air above her.

_**16 Earth**_**  
**(World: Canon-compliant, maybe)

When she is eight, the earth is ripped out from under her by a branch-member who'd been licensed to the ANBU. _Massacre_, he grits through his teeth, eyes unbelieving. _Itachi_, he continues, and her world shatters like a glass castle dropped from too great a height. Hinata gathers the pieces and holds on to their painful shards.

A decade, and Hinata stands in the way of Sasuke's march to Konoha.

Hate-crimson eyes accuse: _you wouldn't understand_.

The land trembles with rage, his and hers, dissolving out of its patterns, and she shouts, flinging those shards: _I knew him too, Sasuke!_

_**17 Red**_**  
**(World: Anastasia AU)

The sun comes up red morning of the revolution – an appropriate color – it soothes the frost spidering across the palace grounds – some areas, trickles of melted snow runs pink. From a vantage point, past dirty panes of glass, Itachi watches the bodies hauled into army trucks, the looting of dead people's jewelry, the debauched victory. An entire family _dead – _it was almost enough to move him to tears, if not for the thin possibility of one princess surviving, somewhere in the unforgiving tundra of communism. He remembers the benediction of a royal smile, essentially unearned, and vows to find her.

_**18 Sleep**_**  
**(World: Fairytale AU)

Some nights she is offered a reprieve from sleeping, and she spends it atop rooftop watching at ghostly half-moon travelling the star-studded sky. A hundred years of slumber, a century in stasis, waiting for a savior in someone she knew once upon a dream, how _terribly_ romantic. In reality, it's a genjutsu of a most horrible nature, cast through the prick of a senbon needle, and virtually indestructible. Unless, probably, someone really tries. Some nights, the full moon takes on a shape of an unusual Sharingan eye and, in Uchiha Madara's voice, reminds her that Itachi is working on it.

_**19 Happiness**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

_Laugh at the night, at the day, at the moon, laugh at the twisted streets of the island, laugh at this clumsy boy who loves you_, quoted Itachi, one misty morning at the banks of Kirigakure as they stressed over diplomatic agendas. And Hinata did laugh, silver bells in her throat, pleasing Itachi to no end for taking it so literally. Because, when you're young and life's a golden path, happiness was an ANBU captain who was known to everyone in the four living generations as one of the high bars for sheer competence in shinobi society calling himself clumsy.

_**20 Hope**_**  
**(World: World War AU)

Hope tangles audaciously in her chest like cobwebs cast along her ribs, stalwartly woven into complex starburst patterns too fragile to touch. It is a painful, foreign thing in the face of an earth choked with graves and a sky permeated by the crying of hysterical children. Hope refused to be plucked by the cold hand of war, whether in increments (bravery) or at once (happiness). There's fire in it, and purpose. And she keeps it close to her heart even as warplanes soar over the city – death flying overhead – as she waits for her soldier to march on home.

_**21 Hair**_

(World: Fairytale AU)

Hokage Tower is a tall peak of stone reaching for the sky, the type dragons risk to be slain for, with no doors and no stairs. It holds a girl, who submits to the Godaime-witch for her clan's insidious demand for better roughage (lettuce) in their issue-lunchpacks. Five hours – the introductions unfinished – sudden lockdown forces everyone to remain seated with the scum they abhor. Clever ideas aside, they scale down the high walls upon the chakra-enhanced-hair of Godaime's wigs, which breaks at the seventh braid, sending them all crashing. The girl fortunately lands somewhere nice, sexy and Uchiha.

The End.

_**22 Train**_**  
**(World: Contemporary AU)

She sees him as she boards the train. He wears the crisp black suit like he was born in it, his tie red like blood bloomed across the stitchery, his hair and lapels flying with the autumn wind. Their eyes meet – for a second – the world falls away and they stand together on an endless void, eyes locked like hands clasped together. There is a vague apology in his. Something electric like recognition shudders through her, she breaks first, the train pulls away and he is already gone.

The next day, the gangland assassination of Uchiha Shisui makes national headlines.

_**23 First**_**  
**(World: Canon compliant, maybe)

They said the first love is the most powerful, and Hinata didn't believe it, not until she sees the star of all her childhood fantasies and adolescent nightmares, lying in a swathe of his own blood, chin tilted up to heaven, cold, and gone. And there, love rears its raw-red and ugly head, raises accusing eyes, breaks her along the fault lines she thought had mended. They said the first death is the most terrible, and it's not – it was a flat, grey illusory mission that had gone without a hitch, worth only two days' nightmares – not compared to this.

_**24 Chips**_**  
**(World: Las Vegas AU)

The chips fall on the table with clean, delineated sounds: _chink, chink, chink. _It breaks through the steady roar of confident voices, the high trills of slot machines, the gushing of wine bottles pried open. A _number_, and he's lost a grand.

It is unfair, Itachi muses as he sips sunshine-colored champagne, that some seventeen floors above, his bestfriend and girlfriend are making off with the heist of the decade, while he does the collaterals. But, then again, next month was _Paris_, the thieves' paradise, and he's contented.

Life's an intriguing game, after all, and he's been dealt his hand.

_**25 History**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

It is raining, and Hinata is marked with the caged bird, and the hand on her forehead is cold, old and shivering. Hinata is eight, and the sealing is over, and history has voted in favor of the strong. A cloying mist in the afternoon, and it seeps into the gauze. There are puddles blooming in the street, and the bandage obscures her vision, and Itachi catches her on his way.

But the hand at her shoulder crumples like dust in a desert wind, when he notices, when he realizes…

Itachi is thirteen, and he ponders the nature of families.

_**26 Enchantment**_**  
**(World: Vampire AU – _oh no you didn't_)

He is pale, beautiful enchantment in ivory skin, black-winged capes, carved diamond edges, a study of light and dark and exotic slashes of lines. He is never too real, always weaving with the graveyard mist, never as real as he was in the open sunshine when he proposed her _forever_ and didn't mean it so literally. But even after years upon years under the curse of blood screaming for blood, dedication is what she doesn't waver from, even as the open maw of a silken crypt waits for him with the tangerine sunrise, and he leaves her at another dawn.

_**27 Sky**_**  
**(World: _Pirate_ AU)

The endless expanse of sky, vibrant and colorful as an artist's palette, rose high far, far above them. Wood as sturdy as any under her palms, the magnificent roar of seawater, dripping sunshine, warms hands over her own, a voice in her ear – _and this, this is how you steer a ship properly_ – this is the moment Hinata remembers the most, a few seconds where she wasn't the insane kidnapped idiot and he wasn't the resident notorious badass, a crystalline understanding that is encountered but once in a lifetime, and a shared happiness in the thrill of capturing new horizons.

_**28 Gold**_**  
**(World: Hercules-like AU)

The gateposts, she notices, are made of gold, gold-woven chakra like nothing she's ever seen in her lifetime. The architecture, a fractured sort-of-Greek crisscrossed with more modern things – electrical wire, chrome-plated metals, lights of a city – Amegakure, the veritable Olympus hidden by the silver sheath of rain, closed to outsiders. But Itachi is welcome here, for he has a rightful place among gods, and she will not begrudge him that. She quietly turns away, footsteps without sound on the white marble, a strange need to cry in her throat – until Itachi announces he's already found his place, it's with her.

_**29 Green  
**_(World: Contemporary AU)

Waves, _sea-green and frothy_, break along a Pacific shoreline that seems to go on to forever. The sand is warm and powdery under her bare feet, white as her dress fringed with eyelet lace, sparkling under the watery sunshine. Hinata imagines the hectic era of business and politics at home an ocean away, the rocks on which their ideals are forced to take root, to grow, or to wither. Then she forgets those bloody battles, because today is different. She trips over a sandcastle, Itachi runs a hand through wave-washed hair, Shisui fiddles with his phone, and life is perfect.

_**30 Paint**_**  
**(World: Contemporary AU)

The house still smells like paint when they move in, like curtains freshly torn from their wrappings, floor polish. This scent she will always associate with uncertain hope. Arranged marriage – built as two sets of parents like architects built silver castles in the sky – has been better than she'd hoped. It is white-picket-fence perfect, utterly without the messy smolders of contempt. Her husband appears in the doorway – _he fits there, yes_ – the shocking black hair, the sculpted cheeks –things to also get used to. He remarks on the solid foundation, and she thinks it's not the house he's talking about.

_**31 Pure**_**  
**(World: Police AU)

Pure crack costs an arm and a leg, an entire future, one heart, sometimes two. When Hinata carries twenty-seven confiscated grams back to headquarters, she tries to forget the price, the bone-thin hands that paid it, the lilac bitterness bubbling along the grooves of her mouth. Uchiha Itachi, the genius from Homicide, sees the snow – it looks obscenely harmless, white frost on the table – and, almost sympathetically, pats her on the back. He says nothing, no _forget-it's _or _you'll-get-used-to-it's_, only resolution, a _don't-back-down. _It's the greatest tragedy in the world, and she must _fight_ it every step of the way.

_**32 Sister**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

Hanabi's sister sits in her old room in the Hyuuga compound, what's left of it: calligraphy charts, dust-ridged ribbons, dried sticks of flowers. Hanabi stands by, not too close, because her relationship with Hinata is predominantly built on a childhood gilded with marble stolidity and half-hurt smiles. Besides, words of comfort have already been dragged out of her in the first months of war, given to total strangers, there is nothing left but a few senseless dribbles for her sister, the girl left behind by the legend.

Hanabi does not know it, but Hinata considers her presence more than enough.

_**33 Assistance**_**  
**(World: Rebellion AU)

Three-hundred rounds of ammunition, a truckload of gasoline, the truck itself – assistance comees in many forms, his is always cloaked – _daddy longlegs, _they call him, the unknown benefactor. Some nights, there are two trucks, and the other is always – _medical supplies_, _food and camo_, _government papers more useful than anything else _– a different source, a different treachery on the inside.

On TV, a minister vows to weed out any traitors: bullet-hail in a back alley, heirs falling in the brackish mudwater, and the trucks stop coming. Betrayal also comes in many forms, but all accounts are settled the same way.

_**34 Proof**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

In the dead of the night, Hinata cold-bloodedly killed servitude. She dashed its own forehead against the rocks and let it bleed against the ground. In the morning, she buried the body in the incinerated earth of obsolete, bleached-bone traditions. In the twilight, walking the lavender shores, she went to meet the conspirator, handed back the finger-frayed scroll with sky-steep gratitude.

_The last proof left_, Itachi said, fingering the lithe sketch of the counter-seal, seeing his and Shisui's edits here and there, then he rends the criminal evidence to pieces and tosses them into the void of the Nakano River.

_**35 Shadow  
**_(World: Peter Pan AU)

When he comes back for his wayward shadow (clone), she's ready to fly off the window ledge after him, because he's the permanent fixture of her childhood, he and that... fairy… of pixie-dust curls. He lets her follow, all the way to his secluded Kiri island base where they met cannon-birds and mermaids (sharkmen) in the lagoon, and the lost (_missing_) boys. She asks him all the questions – _why, why did you do that _and _why didn't you take me with you_ – and he answers that she's his (Wendy) Hinata, and she deserves all the things his Neverland cannot grant.

_**36 Quiet**_**  
**(World: Canon-compliant, maybe)

When Hinata is seven, she and Itachi sits at the bank of a slow river, a quiet unusual duo, conversations run like the water, a delicate woven flow of voice and silence. He tells her about the Yondaime Hokage – Hinata's never met him, because he'd commended his soul to Kyuubi, and she was born in the winter aftermath – with his words, the face on the mountain bursts to life in her imagination, a figure of distilled sky and sunshine, a protective spray of wings over Konoha, deep cuts of laughter. Hinata yearns to see him someday.

Someday she'll meet Naruto.

_**37 Chance**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

He's dying in a small, well-lit room in an out-of-the-way inn six miles and seven feet north of Sasuke. He dies, lying in an unfamiliar bed, dying of a wound meant for her, chakra spent, lungs dissolving away. She sits on a bright-yellow stool at his side, not quite knowing what's happening, but tears form tracks down her face anyway, because the world's unfair and he's dying a lesser death than he deserves.

Itachi thinks otherwise. _I'll take a chance, take a fall, take a shot for you. You wouldn't understand, but I think it's a good way to go._

_**38 Leaves**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

Trees like monoliths. Crystal falls of light. Breezes like leaves and woodsap cast upon the air. His ever-beloved Konoha has not changed too much. Leaves rustling, twigs snapping, footsteps too heavy for shinobi. He melds into the shadows like glass in crystalline water, and they emerge – Sasuke's age, loud and proud – _Hyuuga Hinata, hmm? You're far out, man, far out. Too rich, too gorgeous, too – _and Itachi doesn't care to follow their ramblings any more than that. He almost smiles at an outcrop of memory – tiny clenched fists and an utterly heart-stealing face – yes, Konoha hasn't changed much at all.

_**39 Head**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

When Hyuuga Neji is deemed the new Head of the Hyuuga, Hinata visits for the first time since the marriage her father engineered as his last act of political maneuvering. They sit across each other, gossamer threads of a shared history strung in the space between them, the air smells of green tea and tradition.

_This is unexpected, Hinata– _

Hinata raises a hand, almost in alarm. The ring on her finger is small, distinctly Uchiha, and it catches in the light, a brief explosion of sparkles. In that blinding aria, he sees a smile. The _sama _dies on his lips.

_**40 Truth**_**  
**(World: Canon-compliant)

When news of the jounins' encounter with Akatsuki flares across Konoha, there is general bristling, because _Uchiha Itachi_, they had loved him, worshipped him, and now he was an ugly rent upon the village's sterling history.

He killed his _entire_ clan, world-breaking awful man, a dickhead for daring to return.

_He's a missing-nin_, Hinata tells herself, pondering on the porch steps.

_He admits it. _Her fingers trace stick figures in the dirt – _one, two, three_. The conjoined hands are familiar.

_He killed Shisui. _It's the painful truth, written in riverwater and a kaleidoscope eye, everyone says so.

She doubts anyway.

_**41 Travel**_**  
**(World: Time Travel AU _and she did it, ohmaigahd_)

Time travel, like riding a frictionless spiral, was dangerous for anyone without her level of chakra control, honed by years upon years of senseless war, instantaneous shifts from chakra blade to scalpel, battlefield to injured-tent. One destination, like one frame in an endless reel, one chance to get it right.

Hinata calculates it perfectly.

She catches Itachi before he falls. Sasuke, too close to dying, does not notice. Jutsu of the future is fearlessly advanced, and even Madara does not notice the body is fake. Medical ninjutsu, even better.

When Itachi wakes, Hinata breathes in hope of averting Sasuke's war.

_**42 Wings**_**  
**(World: Ghost AU)

_And if dreams were wings, I would have flown to you._

She dreams, it's always of distance: roads leading to nowhere, stairways to the sky, tunnels, _centuries_. The ghost says it's unnatural, like _he'd_ know.

The ghost carries airs and firestreams of the old, magnificent centuries. He walks with her – always solemn, subtly kind – sometimes there is regret, only _sometimes_, because he'd gotten to meet her, he says.

She thinks he's causing the dreams because, because she longs to see him alive, heartbeat, pulse and solid flesh, a breeze when he moves, warmth where he touches. Then she remembers, _centuries._

_**43 Face**_**  
**(World: Canon AU)

The way his eyebrows angle downwards, the unforgiving line of mouth, the stems of dark hair against cheekbone – her husband looks precisely the same, but Itachi's face is different today.

He sits at the table, reviewing ANBU files. He's wearing the silly-shirt they bought in Suna, and dinner is cooking away as always, but Itachi's face is different today.

"I've heard," he draws the words out carefully, "you almost died today."

As shinobi, every day dawns with the chance of dying. They know it, and accept it, and it's happened many times over, but Itachi's face is still different today.

_**44 Friends  
**_(World: Canon AU)

The clans become _friends _one fateful night when a troop of Uchiha guardsmen intercepts the Kumogakure kidnapper, running with two Hyuuga eyes and god-swept victory. The guardsmen and their trussed-up catch returns to a hero's welcome in a compound illuminated by floodlights, indignation and reluctant gratitude.

Years later, a coup d'état, oiled by two bloodlines and old money, triumphs with phoenix wings over the present Konoha government. The delicate balance of power, thrown to chaos. In the middle of the night, heirs, figureheads both, walk hand-in-hand through streets cold and barren as ice-fields.

_One day we'll fix it_, Itachi promises.

_**45 Reflection**_**  
**(World: Ragnarok – _the MMORPG_ – AU)

Upon reflection, he's the one who should be the assassin, grown in the hot, endless sands, raised in the art of poison and imbibed with two-handed dexterity. His build, the swift dark looks, the shocking agility. She should've been the priestess, should've had sacrosanct words trumpeted into her soul and trained in the hallowed green fields of the capital city. But instead, she's the one at the frontlines, landing all the dagger-sharp, toxin-tipped blows, while he casts all the enchantments of support. There is an amusing turn of role-reversal somewhere, mutually acknowledged, joked about, but the partnership remains perfect anyway.

_**46 Falling**_**  
**(World: Freedom Fighter AU)

Heroes, like Itachi, don't die on pedestals, they die in staccato bursts of gunfire, their lofty ideals scattered to the wind as old stardust and dead possibilities. Most people know this, if unconsciously, and say – _falling is safer, really _– because to fly is to soar to limitless heights, farther than the sky and farther than the stars, a wild burning careen, too easy to snuff. Hinata has watched a hero all her life, lived with him, loved him, had known crystalline joy and sharp-shattered despair, pitch-dark alleys, self-starvation, scum-of-the-earth and riotous crowds. Falling _is _safer, yet she keeps on dreaming.

_**47 Morning  
**_(World: Canon AU)

Mornings come as fresh as crisp, green apples. Light drizzling rain paints the windows, there is hot coffee on the table, _fruit_; most days, Itachi's out the door before the coffee brews, but sometimes, when she peters into the kitchen, he is there, standing at the windows, shirtless and in pajama bottoms, forehead pressed to the cool glass, just looking over Konoha.

Love comes in many forms: the gracefully-prepared breakfast on the table, the tender undercurrent in his voice – _hey, come over here, see what I see _– his banner of protection over Konoha. Mornings such as these, she's grateful for.

_**48 Lost**_**  
**(World: Contemporary AU)

They lost her baggage, somewhere out in the continents, and she walks away from the airport with only a backpack to speak of, no matter, as she told Itachi on the phone – _I'm here, and I'll see you both when I get there_. Through taxi windows, she sees the city skyline, a parade of lights set against the twilight sky, tall spires and girders, and thinks this, this is _America_ and it's her entire future written on the material earth, corridors of opportunity so vast and _there, there, it exists for the taking _that it makes her want to weep.

_**49 Last**_**  
**(World: Canon-compliant, maybe)

The last things Itachi gives her are Suna-seeds, in a sackcloth packet tied by a turquoise ribbon, the best of medicinal herbs, and her gratitude is in the last hug she gives him. His last words tell her to grow up well, and he says it with something akin to regret.

The last time she sees Itachi, and he's arguing with Shisui, his words are cool-controlled and yet it is more heated than anything she's ever heard, and feels like a star burst over her skin, pouring its prickly, electricity over her.

The last time she loves Itachi, doesn't exist.

* * *

_End._

My contribution to the fandom. It was supposed to go to fifty, but I… don't like that number.

Review! (Expansion to 500-words, or more, is a possibility. But I'm ditching the flowery language.)


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